COM port not recognised on Arduino Mega Atmel 1280

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

Hi

I have searched quite a lot about this topic but could not find anything that solves the issue. I apologise if this has been posted somewhere

Basically I have Aduino mega 1280 left over since some years ago. Today I tried to flash it from my Window 10 laptop, but menu Tool/Port does not show anything. The Port is dissable. My attempts were:

  • Plug/unplug man times
  • Change USB port from laptop
  • restart Laptop
  • Install Arduino IDE latest version
  • Check Device manager and it does not show any New/Other devices
  • Power the board externally with 12V supplpier

Observations:

  • No notificaition of new device/port when scanning for hardware in Device manager
  • FTDI chip that close to the USB-B is really hot, barely touching fingers

So I dont know how to confirm it the board is really broken/not usable. I would have to buy another one.
but it will be expensive.
Thanks

2

FTDI chip that close to the USB-B is really hot, barely touching fingers

It is not good. The FTDI chip is USB interface for the board and it is probably damaged. It should not be warm either.

3

Adding to that, you can use an so-called ftdi cable instead of using the on-board usb chip. I would remove the broken chip though.

No need for a new board that way (if that's the only thing that is broken).

4

Thank you guys for the answer. I think I am going to get an new Uno instead of fixing this very old board

5

When you say "windows 10" I always think USB 3.0 port issues.
Arduinos have mixed results on USB 3.0 ports so I would always recommend swapping to a USB 2.0 port.

Also under windows 10 the ports dont always show and you may have to enable them using the "Show hidden devices"

You may also have to install the actual FTDI drivers that should be in the Arduino installation folder (drivers sub folder) in a ZIP file that needs to be extracted.
But install as an Administrator to prevent any further possible issues.

Just before you consign the device to the trash :wink: